Columbia, Take A Page From Your Book

The New York Sun ran an article yesterday that put [Columbia University back in the spotlight], so soon after slinking away beneath the shadow of the [Iranian president’s visit ](http://nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=72548819)last week. “A new documentary about censorship on college campuses claims that Columbia administrators demanded content review of all footage shot on its property in an effort to stifle an unflattering representation of the university,” the paper reports. What’s this? No, it can’t be! But Columbia is a beacon of free speech, giving the Ahmadinejad’s of the world a platform to spread their bizarre message of peace and love.

The film in question, titled Indoctrinate-U (which would make a great t-shirt, by the way), premiered at the [John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts] last week. The documentary claims that institutions of higher education silence the healthy debate necessary to expand the mind (dude) by silencing viewpoints considered not-so-politically correct. You can find deleted scenes [here](http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html) showing director Evan Mahoney getting a lesson from school administrators on filming rules at Columbia, which allegedly included being accompanied by one of their own at all times, final content control, and a vacillating fee dependent on the film’s stance (pretty much proving Mahoney’s point). A Columbia spokesman, of course, denies these claims, all but asserting Mahoney’s footage is CGI.